Process for producing a gas tight light transmitting optical fiber plate
AssigneeHoya Glass Works, Ltd.
InventorsMasaaki Osagawa, Kunimitsu Kobayashi, Kenji Nakagawa
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Abstract
A process for producing a gas tight light transmitting optical fiber plate comprising arranging the optical fibers or bundles of the optical fibers in a die, heating and compressing the optical fibers at a temperature of between the transition point of the glass of the optical fibers and the softening point of the glass of the optical fibers thereby to weld the optical fibers together, and maintaining the welded optical fibers within that temperature range at a pressure higher than the pressure during the heating period which is sufficient to cause the shrinkage of voids by the surface tension of the optical fibers.
Claims2
A process for producing a light transmitting plate comprising arranging optical fibers or bundles of optical fibers in a die, heating the optical fibers to a temperature ranging between the transition point of the optical fiber glass and the softening point of the optical fiber glass, welding the heated optical fibers together by applying compression under a reduced pressure, releasing the applied compression after the welding of the optical fibers, and maintaining the welded optical fibers at that temperature range at a pressure higher than the pressure during the heating period which is sufficient to cause the shrinkage of voids by the surface tension of the optical fibers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.